DACed and Confused here...

+++1 for Denafrips Pontus II 12th Anniversary, price is a touch over your price range at $1,820. Beautiful DAC with a slightly analog sound signature. Makes me want to listen to it all day. Eventually you'll probably add a dedicated streamer (plugged directly into the ethernet output), but the Pontus will NOT be a weak point for you.

If you are a "detail" animal the Chord works.....too bright for me, couldn't listen for more than an hour or so; but for some might be perfect

Wireworld Silver Starlight 7 cables are available used at very reasonable prices. Furuteck makes good cables too. The best I've found is from Canada and begins (I think) with "Z." 

Zavfino? 

Enthusiastic vote for the Gustard R26 here, which thanks to frequent sales is often sub-$1500.

The built in LAN streamer is very good, to the point I'm not considering an external one anymore. Aside from some minor complaints related to aesthetics, UX, and firmware updating, it sounds great out of the box, incredible after 300 hours, and is ready for you to experiment with upgrades at various price-points when you feel the itch again (fuses, DDC, external clock).

I'd describe the sound as fun, detailed, and dynamic, with an overall neutral signature, but with some extra harmonic richness. I wouldn't call it warm. The low output impedance plays very well with any downstream component.

You also might want to consider using two fiber media converter boxes connected with a short run of fiber optic cable to clean up your ethernet signal just before the DAC. I can't say I observed night/day differences but others swear by it and the total cost is $80 or less.

Happy Holidays to all.

As always, thanks very much for the helpful comments. I'll report back with what I end up doing!

I've used the Apple Camera connector for an old iPhone while listening to background internet radio, sounded ok for it's purpose but it recently died. I looked up the Lavri cable you recommend but it doesn't say anywhere if you can power a device through it like the Apple. Can you please clarify? 

@treynolds155 You cannot power the device through the cable, but the sound improvement was well worth that relatively minor sacrifice.